


a million shards of glass

by Chrome



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), SPECTRE (2015)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Fear of Flying, Gen, I named Q's cats after AIs from a William Gibson novel, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-SPECTRE, Q's cats - Freeform, Spoilers for SPECTRE, but it largely stands alone, originally posted on a roleplay blog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 20:20:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5219468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrome/pseuds/Chrome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bond leaves a mess behind.  Q, as always, helps clean up. [Set post-SPECTRE.  Contains spoilers.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	a million shards of glass

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as a solo for a roleplay blog; hence, there are references to headcanons and other details that may be unfamiliar. However, as it largely stands alone and none of these details contradict James Bond canon, I thought it was worth sharing to a slightly larger audience.

Overall, Q figures he actually makes a number of mistakes, but the one that sticks with him is walking to the shattered glass and looking down at the crumpled body on the pavement below. The dark is spreading around it, and he knows it’s blood and his brain is tired enough to cheerfully, immediately conjure the salt-iron stench despite the fact that he’s too far up to actually smell it.

It’s the little bit of nausea that accompanies it that brings everything else rushing forward—the terror of almost running out of time, being shot at, running from people who would have been happy to kill him, risking his job, flying to Austria—he’s compartmentalized so much in the past few days that he can’t shove away that little bit of horror. It all comes rushing back and the next thing he knows, he’s dry-heaving on the floor of the MI-5 building.

He wonders for a second why he isn’t actually vomiting before he realizes he hasn’t eaten anything he could throw up. Then, he thinks, at least no one will know if I don’t make a mess, which is silly because Moneypenny may be following M about outside, but Tanner comes back up to figure out which agency should be handling the building and finds him trembling on the floor. There isn’t a ton of compassion in MI-6, Q has always figured—not room for it, considering their line of work—but Tanner has more than his share, enough that he kneels beside Q and rests a hand on his shoulder until the younger man has pulled himself together enough to stand.

“You should go home,” Tanner says, and Q shakes his head.

“M will need me.” There’s no question of it; it was Q alone who kept the program from going online, Q who supported Bond throughout this. Aside from Bond, who Q knows is pulling a vanishing act with that girl, he has the most information about it all, and the skills to try and pick up the shards of their computer systems. There is no one else in the world who can do his job tonight, and though such a fact might have given him a sense of pride any other time, he just feels exhausted and alone.

Tanner doesn’t argue. “Cup of tea?”

He grips the edge of the desk with his hand, leans back and closes his eyes. “Please.”

\---

He doesn’t fall asleep, not really, but he does sort of zone out until he hears someone say, “Q?” and it’s Moneypenny, she and M are back upstairs and she’s giving him a concerned look. Tanner hands him the tea—it’s in a mug he obviously took from the kitchen, some generic black thing with a football club logo on it—and he drinks it without thinking. “Sir,” he looks at M, who appears to be just as tired as Q.

He looks them over for a moment, and decides. “Moneypenny, go home. Tanner, the new head of MI-5 will be here in twenty. Brief him on the situation, do what he needs, and then go home. Q--” he hesitates, and Q knows he’s weighing the needs of the country against Q’s pallor and slumped posture. He wearily, deliberately straightens up. He can fall apart some other time.

“Q, I need you to establish contact with the other 00’s. We’re temporarily reactivating the program in light of the crisis—I’ve gotten an emergency green light, considering the circumstances. Pack, and be back at 0400. I need you to come with me to Japan.”

Q nods, a quick jerk of his head. “Sir.” He needs to go home to pack his clothes, feed the cats, and he can’t construct a plausible way to get there. Moneypenny’s hand is, thankfully, on his elbow. “I’ve got a cab,” she says softly, steering him towards the elevator. “We’re going the same direction.” He stays mostly composed until they’re safely behind the closed doors of the elevator, and then he is on the ground though he doesn’t remember deciding to sit. Moneypenny sits cross-legged across from him and studies his face.

“M needs me,” he says, forestalling the objections he knows she wouldn’t make. They are friends, but more importantly they are fellow soldiers, and they have a mission to complete.

“I know. God help us,” she says, and takes his hand and pulls him to his feet as the elevator dings to announce their arrival on the ground floor. “Cab.”  
The tea is working, enough that he doesn’t doze off in the cab, and she directs the cabbie. When they stop at his apartment, he says, “Eve—“ and she says, “I’ll feed your cats while you’re away, don’t worry.”

Once he’s inside, he has a set of instructions and he goes on autopilot. Food in the cat dishes, kettle on, packing as methodically as he can. Pants, trousers, shirts, jackets, socks. He only has the pair of shoes he’s wearing, so that will have to be enough. He doesn’t have to pack most of his systems—he never took them out of the boxes from Austria. Instead, he plugs in his laptop, pours himself another cup of tea, and starts making phone calls.

The double-0’s are all over the country, grounded with the dissolution of the program and low on the list of people to bring back. They have been set adrift, and it is only because he knows the temperament of these people that he knows they’ll come back. 001 is initially harsh but then understanding; 002 hangs up in anger and then calls back, 003 calls him before he can call her to confirm what 001 had said. He dials 004 with a terrible wrenching hope, and he feels the nausea of before all over again when it rings to voicemail. He tries for professional, a notification of the reactivation of the program and further instructions from another tech, but he thinks his voice is shaking.

005 answers immediately and she has clearly been paying attention to the mess in London—she has a few questions but is calm and cooperative. 006 is clearly drunk when he picks up. He knows 007’s number by heart and is suddenly struck by the fact that if Bond is out, really out, then he’s lost his partner. He’s lost the person who was supposed to have his back, the person he flew to Austria for, the one person he put his faith in more than MI-6.

He wants to curl into a ball and never leave his apartment ever again. He takes a deep breath, shoves the impulse into a box and slams the lid, and calls 008.

\---

He’s had four cups of tea, not counting Tanner’s, and has everything packed by 0330. He calls a cab and then sits on the floor of his kitchen with a cat in his lap, even paler in the light of the mostly empty refrigerator. There’s a mandarin orange in the fruit drawer, a little wrinkled but still edible, and he peels it carefully with one hand, the other one pressed into Wintermute’s fur. The cat purs, and he feels another warm body brush against his knee, an uncharacteristically comforting gesture from Neuromancer. The scruffy tabby is typically standoffish but quite perceptive, and Q realizes they must know that something is wrong.

“I’m okay,” he tells them, sliding his glasses off and burying his face in Wintermute’s long black fur. “I’m okay.”

Neuromancer comes by for another pass, and he knows that no one in the room believes what he’s saying.

\---

Tanner is, for some reason, still there when he returns to MI-5 headquarters, which is now crawling with bleary-eyed, confused techs, and he silently hands Q a bottle of pills. They aren’t as strong as what he’d normally take, but anything to take the edge of the fact he’s getting on another plane is better than the alternative. The man does not get paid enough, Q thinks, and manages a smile of thanks.

005 has texted another question, 006 has left a drunk voicemail. 004 has made no response. He swallows three of the pills on the ride to the hospital and doesn’t look at M the whole way, which is easy because the man never gets off his cell phone.

It’s less easy when they’re actually boarding the plane and he can’t stop his hands from shaking as he carefully unscrews the cap and takes another pill. He squeezes his eyes shut during takeoff and his heart feels like it’s beating straight through his chest until the pills and the exhaustion kick in and he passes out.

It’s a twelve-hour flight and he wakes up halfway over Armenia and M proves how terribly astute he is by handing him a cup of water and two pills. He takes them without thinking and passes out again until they’re on the tarmac in Tokyo and M’s hand is on his shoulder, shaking him awake. He half-expects the man to say something about the fact that his quartermaster has to drug himself to get on an aircraft, but he doesn’t.

“I need you to comb their files,” M says. “If we had a mole, they could, too.” They head straight to the office, and Q has no idea what time it is in Japan, really, maybe afternoon or evening, but there’s people in the office and he sets up his laptop and plugs into their files immediately. In front of code, it’s easy to shut down, forget the silent phone and the isolation and the fear and the exhaustion and just understand. Someone tries to get him to take a break, at some point, but he knows that’s more likely to make him shatter entirely and shakes them off with a few mangled phrases of Japanese.

They put a cup of tea at his elbow, though, so that’s nice, even if it is green and not Earl Grey.

They end up making three arrests off his findings, and M looks exhausted but maybe a modicum less stressed when they meet again. It’s about noon then, although Q hasn’t the faintest idea of the day, and he eats a bowl of rice that is put in front of him.

“We’re going to South Africa,” M says, when they’re in a car again, a long black one with a barrier between them and the driver. Q’s paranoia tells him that’s more an illusion of privacy than an actuality, and he activates a signal jammer and holds it up to M, setting it on the seat between them. M nods in approval and hands him a different bottle of pills from before.

“Something stronger,” he says by way of explanation, and Q is pathetically relieved.

“Q,” M says after a moment of silence, “How old were you when you were recruited?”

“Twenty-one,” he answers. “It’s in my file.”

“Really recruited.”

“Oh,” he says, not even surprised. “Seventeen.”

“Have you ever thought about retiring?” M asks. He’s not asking it like a suggestion, or a questioning of loyalty—it’s curiosity, pure and simple.

“No,” Q says. M nods, and they sit in silence. Q lets his eyes slide shut and feels, rather than sees, the world slip by past the windows.


End file.
